Sen. Roger Wicker, Republican from Mississippi, doesn’t plan to attend a hearing next week that will feature the newly appointed chief of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Wicker said he plans to boycott a Senate Banking Committee hearing on January 31, arguing that the appointment of the bureau’s new director, Richard Cordray, did not comply with the constitution.

“I will not provide the Administration with an appearance of legitimacy in this action, and I will therefore not be in attendance at next Tuesday’s hearing,” Wicker said on the Senate floor Thursday.

However, Sen. Richard Shelby’s spokeswoman said Friday that the Alabama Republican plans to attend the hearing “as he has planned to from the beginning.” She added that he has also instructed Republican committee members that regular order will apply.

President Barack Obama appointed Cordray earlier this month to run the agency — a controversial move, because it bypassed the traditional way of making recess appointments.

Senate Republicans had been refusing to approve Cordray through the typical process, on grounds that the agency was too powerful, structurally flawed and lacked accountability to Congress.

Employing a tactic previously used by Democrats, Republicans had been seeking to block the White House from making the appointment by setting up so-called pro forma legislative sessions of Congress — sessions that are sometimes only seconds long — and in which no business is conducted.

It was during one of these pro forma sessions that Obama appointed Cordray to the position on Jan. 4.

However, White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer on earlier this month called the “pro forma” sessions a gimmick. He argued that they do not override the president’s “constitutional authority” to make appointments.